


A Brave New World

by WhisperingAFantasy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 21:56:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12616420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingAFantasy/pseuds/WhisperingAFantasy
Summary: Jon is unable to forgive his parents upon learning of his true lineage. He especially blames his mother.Arya Stark had always been the one who managed to make him smile and she also knew one brutal truth -“The world doesn't just let girls decide what they're going to be.”She now had to make Jon realize the bitter truth as well and in doing so help him heal from scars of the past and maybe form a brave new world.





	A Brave New World

**Author's Note:**

> I was watching a couple of Arya scenes - particularly one where she asks Ned if she can be the lord of a hold-fast and later one with Sansa where she says the words that inspired this fic.

 

A Brave New World

 

 

“ _The world doesn't_  just  _let girls decide_  what they're going to be.”

  * Arya Stark



 

 

The War for Dawn, as it came to be named by Samwell Tarly, finally ended two weeks ago.

The casualties were still too great, the damage and destruction too much but the living had won and that was what counted. It was what mattered.

Cersei and Euron had been killed too by Jaime and Theon who had breathed their last too and the worst was behind them.

They had lost a great many of theirs to defeat the undead as well as the Golden Company and the Lannister forces but their losses were not in vain. They shall have no songs sung or written for them but they shall forever be the ones the world would owe too.

As Jon Targaryen and Daenerys Targaryen set foot outside Winterfell from their chambers for the first time since the war ended, where they had been coped up healing from their wounds their eyes finally saw the aftermath.

The world knew now that Jon was Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen’s son – and though the revelation caused quite a chaos as it stirred up an old scandal anew in the face of war none of it mattered and post war there was no need for it to matter. For Jon had defeated the Night King and that was the biggest truth of them all and he had the aide of his two most loyal companions who helped keep the living safe – Ghost and Rhaegal.  It seemed befittting that the first ever child of Stark and Targaryen lineage ever would have those companions that were the sigils of his parents’ houses.

Rhaegal and Drogon were off flying away after the war and Ghost and Nymeria hunting since then but the world knew that they owed the beasts that they feared their lives and so none of them was viewed as a source of evil anymore. The Wolf and the Dragon came to be respected for the forces of nature that they were.

It was while the last two Targaryens were walking around Winterfell meeting with the survivors thanking the common folk and the lords alike, murmuring their sympathies to those who had lost their loved ones that their eyes stopped when they spotted some familiar figures.

Jon would know those set of shoulders and that laughter anywhere in the world and he saw to his delight that his little Arya was coming back to herself. That delight however didn’t last long.

He saw as Arya conversed with some free folk and as Podrick and Gendry stood besides her helping her distribute soup and bread.  Arya would stop to talk long enough to talk with everyone she met; enough to make sure that she heard out what they needed and had a boy whose name  Jon failed to recall write it down on a list but she wouldn’t stay long enough to make the others wait for too long.

Two strong unsullied were helping in making sure that Gendry and Podrick never ran out of soup and bread that they were holding and to Daenerys’ surprise she even saw two of the fiercest Dothraki helping Arya as they followed her instructions to help those too weak and injured with some blankets. Jon noticed that Arya’s little trope didn’t consist of just those five there were others too.

She had two men who were able to walk help nurse the injured. One was gathering lumber with a small number of helpers to rebuild the broken houses, while the other had just informed her that the Reach, Dorne as well as the Highgarden had sent over grains and fruits. The Citadel had dispatched letters as well as their Maesters to help them treat the sick and the wounded as per her request.

Upon waking up both the Targaryens’ had been worried about their people and were forced to stay in bed under Sam’ strict instructions but were assured that everyone was being taken cared off.

Arya and Sansa had made sure that their people knew they had not fought for people who did not value or respect them. Sansa was busy corresponding with various houses and Citadel via ravens who had all wanted to help Winterfell as a token of thanks for saving the world as they knew it and Arya had taken to mingling about people as soon as she was deemed fit enough to be out of bed.

“Arya is a remarkable young woman.” Daenerys Targaryen murmurmed softly as she saw the girl move about doing all she can do to help and more effortlessly as if she were born into this role.

“She is Your Grace; Arya has been taking care of the people around here so well that the people know that they have not given their loved ones up in vain. She is even looking after the horses and other livestock as well as helping Maester Tarly in sums though he is good at it too but he is exhausted with healing around so many.”

Missandei replied softly.

She saw the young girl who was reeling from her loss of Grey Worm looking at the young girl with admiration in her eyes.

Arya had fought in the war alongside them and had been wounded too but not badly enough to require a long bedrest. The girl’s direwolf and her pack had helped more than Daenerys could define but what had touched her most was in the end was Nymeria, Arya’s direwolf, had carried Grey Worm back to safety.

Grey Worm had succumbed to injuries eventually but had promised Missandei that in their next lives they shall be together and had asked her to be happy and not mourn his loss. He had thanked his Khaleesi had him be a part of a battle that was the greatest in history. To him, it was the highest honor that he fought and was dying for a worthy cause and not just as a free man.

He had thanked Arya, who was in the sick bed adjacent to his own for bringing him back to Missandei one last time even when she was herself so injured and bleeding. He was dying a happy man for it, for being lucky enough to witness the woman he loved even if for one last time.

Arya never got a chance to brush aside his thanks, for the brave man breathed his last with the name of his love upon his lips before she could say anything to him.

Daenerys knew Missandei mourned his loss more than she could let on but the act had endeared Arya to her advisor.

She had spotted the girl in the company of the young warrior not two days back and had seen them embrace as Missandei had wept thanking her for getting him to safety even if he never lived.

It was in that moment she saw Arya was more than a ferocious, wild girl with a thirst for revenge and a way around weapons. She was the kind of leader that was needed in the world; and Arya Stark was a leader regardless of what she said.

Her actions were not unnoticed by people around her and not just because she was a Stark.

Arya inspired fear and awe, but more fear than awe since the revealation it was she who had wiped out House Frey singlehandedly to avenge the Red Wedding to everyone’s surprise. Most feared her since Walder Frey’s young widow had narrated the incident in such detail that it made some think of Arya as some sort of a witch or a goddess depending on who narrated the tale. The more the tale had spread the more it was spiced and Arya’s status was escalated from warrior maiden to Satan or angel depending on who was listening.

House Frey had no loyalists for old Walder never inspired anything other than contempt but their bannermen came to dread her. Among those who lost anyone that night, in service of Robb Stark the young woman was revered. There had been many marriage proposals for the young woman already despite the fear she inspired much to her horror and incredulity.

 When she turned to Jon, she saw him watching the scenario in front of them he had a stern look and what she could decipher as anger in his eyes much to her surprise.

“Jon.” 

She softly called out to the man who didn’t hear her from the looks of it and so she called him again, this time placing a soft hand on his arm which finally got his attention.

“Whats the matter, you look angry.”

She asked him.

“Nothing, nothing at all; if you’ll excuse me I need to talk to Arya.”

Without a moment’s pause, she watched Jon walk away.

Jon had been mortified and disturbed ever since he learned of his true lineage. She knew he was the brooding sort, something that had attracted her to him in the first place but she could see it was not something he was quite ready to deal with yet.

In his head, his parents were responsible for chaos and destruction that had made the realm bleed all for selfish reasons. He had been the angriest she had seen him as he learned he was the product of a relationship that he believed could have been done without.

He did not care that he was the heir to the iron throne; he did not want anything to do with it and in her heart she suspected she knew why he had acted the way he did in the very last moments of the battle. His foolishness to get close enough to the Night King in the paramount moments of the battle had been more of a death wish than an urge to defeat the evil that he represented.

If it hadnt been for her on Drogon and Arya riding Nymeria distracting the Night King enough, her dragon’s fire and Arya killing the first White Walker created by the Night King with Dark Sister, the sword of her ancestor Visenya which distracted and somehow weakened the Night King enough she fears they would have lost Jon.

Lost in her thoughts she does not realize when Arya and Jon come back done for the day.

Later after they had supped at Winterfell, Jon was still in a dark mood and everyone was walking on eggshells around him.

Only Arya had had enough.

“What is it Jon? What has gotten into you today?”

If there was one thing Arya Stark was not, it was infinitely patient. Everyone assembled had come to deal with the Jon’s revelation in their own way and they had all decided it best to let Jon be. He would come around on his own in his own time was the consensus.

“Nothing has gotten into me today.” He spoke but there was no truth to the statement and it was evident to everyone present.

“You have been sulking and brooding since you learned you are Lyanna and Rhaegar’s son Jon but today you seem like you want to kill almost fifty men with your bare hands as if they had personally made their match, so of course something is wrong, no make that _more_ wrong with you today than it was yesterday. Just spit it out.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Samwell Tarly, Ser Davos and Sansa wince but she didn’t care, Arya went on.

“Jon you can rage and rant all you want, shut yourself up all that you need but the truth is the truth and it wont change no matter how much it angers you. So accept it Jon, it won’t just go away or change because you refuse to come to terms with it.”

“Enough Arya, I won’t hear anymore of this. I don’t want to listen to one more word about them and I am not discussing this again with anyone not even you.”

“Fine run Jon, run from the truth and hide but it won’t make a difference.”

“I am not running and hiding, I…I…I just refuse to be the son of two people who would be so selfish. I was better off as a bastard than a heir and if you don’t stop now Arya I swear to gods I would leave this place and none of you shall ever sight on me again.”

“Because that won’t be running away and of course that won’t be hiding. If you think that Jon I think it wasn’t your heart but your head that broke since you have stopped thinking.”

“Arya I am warning you….” Jon spoke through clenched teeth.

“Or what _your grace_ …if I don’t shut up will you kill me? Have me executed is that what you will do? Go ahead.”

Arya spoke and Jon looked like he would throw up.

“Arya, stop it.”

Sansa Stark cried out.

“I wont Sansa, this is getting tiring and I am done.”

“Arya…please let Jon be.”

“We have let him be Sansa, since a long time now. However, he needs to stop acting like a child too. Enough is enough, I am tired and I am frustrated. We won the greatest damn war in history but not without our idiot of a king becoming suicidal, all because he didn’t want to deal with his parentage and I was there to see it Sansa you weren’t so stop asking me to be patient anymore. Ask Daenerys if you think I am lying she saw Jon having a death wish as much as I did. We didn’t suffer all that we did, didn’t fight all that we did for this, to watch one of our own become a depressed suicidal mess. I understand the need to deal with things and the time required to do them varies from person to person. I am not denying Jon that I am just asking him to deal with it instead of running away from it. Is it too much? Am I wrong if I don’t want to lose anymore of you, if that makes me selfish so be it… I am not letting this go.”

“Yes it makes you selfish…selfish just like her. Like the woman who bore me.”

Jon spoke up and Arya felt like she had been struck but she didn’t care, Jon needed to let it out and so she poked on. Without this outburst, Jon perhaps would not survive.

“She caused a war because she was selfish. I see why father said you reminded him of her because you are being selfish too…but not because you cannot leave me alone but because you…you are just like her. You are doing just what she did.”

“What am I doing like Lyanna Jon? I don’t understand.”

Arya sounded utterly perplexed, and she could see her confusion reflected in the rest of the company gathered.

“What are you doing? You are going to cause a war… not one of the proportions she did but a war nonetheless because of the way you are going on. You will cause bloodshed just like her.”

“What are you even getting at Jon? What have I been doing? I have just been taking care of people…people who have fought with us, for us…since when did that become wrong or a crime. Correct me if I am wrong but that is what father taught us – to make sure our men knew whom they died for. I have been helping people since you were too busy sulking, hiding away, and you think that would cause bloodshed. Just what have you been drinking? Sam, is he going mad? Wait is it finally happening, the Targaryen blood taking effect?”

Gasps erupted in the room as Jon stalked up to Arya, who didn’t move a step as the distance between them closed in.

“You are doing what she did…Rhaegar was a married man but she…she must have done something to entice him or she didn’t care he was married and still chose to carry on having an affair with him and ran away and that made the realm bleed. You are enticing men. Do not think I am not aware of what is happening…I saw no less than 50 men following your orders, licking your heels like lost puppies and I saw the way they looked at you. Two, just two men wanted the same woman years ago and it led to a war….here I have seen more than those numbers eying you in the same way today what do you think will be the result?”

Arya Stark and Jon Snow had been the closest of siblings, they never fought…not really…they doted on each other and so when people who knew of their love saw their first and possibly ugliest fight they couldn’t believe the things Jon was saying to his favorite little sister. But what their eyes saw next was a bigger shock than what their ears heard.

Arya Stark slapped a reigning king hard across his cheek.

To slap one was asking for death but Jon Targaryen just stood still with a hand to his cheek as it stung as he watched Arya breathing hard and to his horror realized what it was that he just spoke to her.

“You…all of you men think it is a woman who is responsible for everything. I thought you were different Jon. I thought you understood me regardless of the fact that I was a girl and you respected my wishes and desires it is why you gave me Needle. However, I see you are just the same as the rest of them. You think your mother what….seduced your father? For what to feel powerful, to feel attractive, something, anything? Did you for a minute think they were in love? In love Jon and not because of the way they looked but because of the way, they made each other feel? For a minute did it occur to you Lyanna and Rhaegar were trapped and they did what they did because they were suffocating?”

“What they did was wrong because it was selfish no matter what the reasons they might have had. Arya…I shouldn’t have said that about you, I am ...sorry.”

“You can keep your apologies Jon; I don’t care for them because if you don’t understand what it is to feel what Lyanna might have felt what every woman feels they are just words.  I do not think you ever will….men don’t understand because they don’t want to. It has been the way forever hasn’t it? You blamed your mother today Jon because you thought she was selfish… but did it strike you to think once she was brave and courageous?”

“Her bravery and courage, as you call it caused unaccountable suffering Arya…there is no way to defend that.”

“It did, people died, the realm bled, but do you really think it is because Lyanna was selfish or because Robert was a miserable asshole who couldn’t take rejection lying down.”

“What?”

Jon whispered…since the day he had walled himself up this was the first crack in his mental fortress.

“Yes Jon, Lyanna eloped with Rhaegar. She married him in secret, she had you in secret but she did not keep her feelings a secret Jon. Ask Bran… I did and that is why I am telling you this. Lyanna was bethrothed to Robert even without getting a say in the matter. She thought grandfather would pick well for her but he picked a lord to strengthen his ties, he didn’t care much about the man the lord was. Robert was fathering bastards before and even after their betrothal; he fathered bastards while he was on a war to ‘apparently’ rescue his betrothed. Lyanna begged father, grandfather and even Uncle Brandon to call off the betrothal but they didn’t care. She wrote to Robert in a desperate attempt to understand that she didn’t want to marry him. She never mentioned Rhaegar to him for fear of what would happen but none of them cared. Everyone just forced her to carry on with a betrothal she was never happy with, wanted her to marry a man who she couldn’t even respect much less love.”

“Robert knew she didn’t want to marry him?”

Jon asked her hoarsely.

“Yes, he did…only he didn’t care for it. Lyanna had to elope because he didn’t understand nor did anyone else. She eloped with a man she loved Jon…do you know how they fell in love or why precisely? It was because Rhaegar respected her for who she was…he…he knew she was the mysterious knight of the Laughing Tree at Harrenhal and instead of doing what perhaps another man would have done in his place – which was to make sure she was identified and punished for breaking rules he crowned her. Rhaegar crowned her his queen of love and beauty for her spirit Jon…he didn’t get _seduced_ by her…he fell in love with a woman who made him feel alive.”

Jon looked paler and paler as Arya went on but she continued regardless because she knew this window that had just opened was the best shot at getting through to Jon.

“Jon…you…you were raised as a bastard….one who has no name and rights….you know what it feels like. To be considered nothing, no one. Women, women don’t have it much different Jon true born or not. We have no rights just as bastards and are treated the worse for it even with a name. Viserys traded Daenerys like a broodmare for an army to her Khal husband; Sansa had Tyrion foisted upon her….because Joffrey was a sadistic bastard and wanted to humilaite her. Hells even I was traded Jon…do you know that? Robb agreed to a betrothal between me and the youngest Frey boy to use a bridge…a _stupid_ , _stinking_ bridge!”

“What? No? Robb would never do that.”

Jon looked around the room as Arya revealed Robb’s agreement with the Freys.

“Oh but he did Jon, he did.  He traded himself too but it didn’t make things any less worse, did it? Freys made certain demands to allow the use of their bridge and I was one of their ‘ _fees’_ ”.

Arya spat the last word with distaste.

“I didn’t kill the Freys for killing our family Jon, but because of the way they killed them. Had Robb been killed in a battle I would have mourned him just the same but it was something that I could have lived with. What made me wipe them out of existence was the way they killed Robb and not just him but mother and his wife and their child too. I… I saw what they did to his body later Jon. I saw our beautiful brother mutilated and I saw to it that what happened to him didn’t go unpunished and unavenged. I escaped from the fate that was decided for me because I was missing Jon. Otherwise I might have been forced to be one of the people who brutally assassinated our family.”

“Arya.”

Jon breathed her name and she could see he was shaking from her revelation for it was known what had happened to Robb. Sansa’s crying wasn’t lost or muted to her but Arya knew she had to get it out.

“Jon I asked Bran to see what made two people think that their decision to elope wouldn’t wreck the havoc that it would and he told me. He told me Jon that Rhaegar and Elia were forced to marry and she was in love with someone else too. They were friends Jon but not in love. Rhaegar annulled their marriage because only he could do that. He wanted Elia to have her share of happiness too by marrying the man whom she loved as he had found with Lyanna.

Jon, Lyanna was the one who made him happy as he was the one who wanted her for who she was and not what she was supposed to be.

If anyone’s to blame here it is the system that makes men believe women are their property and they are their gods. Robert knew that Lyanna didn’t want him but what hurt him was her rejection and his rebellion happened because he chose to lie to everyone father included. He made them think Lyanna was kidnapped and raped because how else could he have waged that war? He didn’t let them know that Lyanna picked Rhaegar over him and that was an insult his ego couldn’t handle.

Robert never really loved Lyanna he just wanted to own her… he even pushed Cersei into becoming a woman who would have her own husband killed and would rather have bastards with her twin over true born children with her husband.

If anyone is responsible for that war it is the damn rule where a woman can not decide what she wants for her own life and Robert Baratheon for not being man enough to accept her rejection graciously.

Lyanna and Rhaegar didn’t want a war Jon, they just wanted each other and a family; they wanted _you_.

You think being their son is the worst possible curse to befall you? I see it as a gift Jon. You are now the most powerful man in the realm and it is because of the very people you blame. You once told me girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms. I did not make the rules, do you remember that? Jon now you can make the rules or break them. You have known suffering and you have known loss. You know women who have been victims of an unfair system as much as you were for no fault of yours. You can now make a difference and help them Jon, you saved lives and now you can change lives. How is that a curse tell me Jon? How is that a curse? How is being the child of people who loved each other in any way a curse?”

When Jon crossed the remaining steps between him and Arya, for a moment the world stood still until he grabbed her in his arms and wept on her shoulders. His face buried in her hair.

“I was angry at them and I wasn’t thinking about anything else except how they had made such a huge mistake that led to things. Arya… I never ever would have said those things to you. You know that right? I was just so angry and not thinking like you said.”

Rubbing her brother’s back, soothing him as he had done for her countless times in her childhood Arya held Jon.

“I know Jon. I know.”

“I deserved that slap.”

He muttered against her shoulder.

“You did.”

She calmly replies and that makes him chuckle amidst tears as he finally released her.

“You know what I just realized? I don’t think anyone who sat on that stupid throne before had someone to tell them the truth, the hard, brutal and raw truth like you told me now. No one slapped them when they needed to be like I was now. I don’t want to repeat their mistakes Arya; tell me when I am going wrong like you did just now.”

“You’re saying that I can slap you in the future when need be?”

She teased him now that he looked like _her_ Jon.

“A stern rebuke will do you know. What king would be respected if he’s slapped around?”

“I suppose that will have to do.”

She laughed and hugged Jon again.

In that moment Daenerys knew Arya Stark was more than a leader too; she was someone who the realm needed. A woman unapologetic and unafraid of speaking her mind today had managed to make the kind of difference she had envisioned to make when she started freeing slaves.

A ruler needed to be respected and feared but also loved; and in that moment she knew exactly what Arya was going to be in her reign.

Small wonder it was then that Arya Stark became the master of whispers in the small council once Jon and she married and ascended upon the iron throne together. A master of disguises Arya became a force unto herself as she knew what exactly was going on in the Seven Kingdoms and where. What made her different from Varys was she played no games with those on the throne and instead made sure that none were played with them anymore. The small folk prospered under the reign of a fair ruler and lives indeed did change when Jon Targaryen the first of his name granted women equal rights in his rule. Women could be home makers if they so chose, but they could be warriors and law makers and even maesters after that if they so wished. There were oppositions from time to time but it was a new world that Jon and Daenerys Targaryen were hell bent on establishing with their new council which was made of the oddest lot and no one had the courage to openly oppose them.   A former assassin, a dwarf, a self confessed coward who was a married maester with a wildling wife and the first female knight in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. From time to time the Queen in the North Sansa Stark was also seated in the meetings.

A year later when Daenerys went into labor and had her son with Jon, the Queen asked Arya to stay with Jon and be the voice of reason when she knew she would breathe her last soon. She knew he needed Arya just as he had earlier. She asked Arya to make sure her son was a just and kind ruler too like Jon was and she tried to be.

Arya Stark became Arya Targaryen after Aemon Targaryen celebrated his third name day. On his fourth he was gifted by his ‘ _mama’_ with two new siblings to play with – Eddard and Lyanna - aside from the cousins he already had from Aunt Sansa and Uncle Sandor as well as Aunt Meera and Uncle Brandon and would soon from aunt Missandei and Uncle Gendry too who were about to be married in a fortnight

 


End file.
